Inflation is subsiding and economic sentiment worsening in the euro zone, according to reports today.
The findings should strengthen market expectations that the European Central Bank (ECB) will cut interest rates next week.
The bloc's inflation rate unexpectedly fell to 2.2 per cent in November from 2.3 per cent in October, according to an early estimate by EU statistics agency Eurostat, which bore out repeated forecasts by ECB officials that price pressures would abate.
Such predictions have got financial markets looking to the ECB's policy meeting next week for the first cut in rates in more than a year, even though inflation has come in above the bank's self-set two per cent ceiling for four months running.
The case for a rate cut is seen as all the stronger given signs the euro zone economy is struggling to recover.
The economy's sluggishness was highlighted by a European Commission report showing euro zone economic sentiment worsened in November as a deterioration in consumer confidence outweighed a slight improvement in industrial confidence.
The overall economic sentiment index fell to 98.6, its lowest level in at least a year and in line with economists' expectations. That compared with October's revised 98.8 reading, which had previously been reported as 98.9.
Eurostat will next month release more detailed data on November inflation, including the monthly change in prices.